1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technology for administering a log in a distribution system.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a distribution system, investigation or retrieval is performed on logs collected for maintenance work for each system on the distribution system or for research on a cause of a fault. Conventionally, logs necessary for each system are collected in real-time by an administration system, and retrieval is performed with respect to the collected logs. When necessary logs are not collected in real-time, retrieval is performed for each system.
For example, log information that can be a determination material for predicting faults is extracted at a terminal connected to a host computer through a communication line. By centralized administration of the extracted log information by the host computer, abnormality can be grasped in advance and faults can be precluded (for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. H7-200365).
In recent years, a scale of systems is increasing. Accordingly, a scheme of collecting logs by an administration system in real-time can be a factor that increases a load on the network and the administration system. Therefore, a scheme of directly retrieving the logs present on the distribution system without collecting the logs in real-time is necessary.
In a scheme of directly retrieving the logs, transmission and reception of a result of retrieval between networks for each retrieval are necessary. In a shop monitoring system that monitors machines in shops, to facilitate reduction of the network load, log data are collected without transmitting or receiving predetermined application logs (for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. H11-327964).
However, in the conventional technique described above, logs are collected under predetermined conditions. Therefore, if conditions necessary for maintenance work or research on a cause of a fault are not set, logs present in each system must be directly retrieved. If many conditions are set to collect necessary logs, a large number of logs are collected and the network load increases. In other words, reduction of the network load can not be achieved, and therefore, retrieval response is degraded.